10 Questions for Lorenzo Fertitta

He’s the majority owner of the most successful fight promotion in the world -- yet Lorenzo Fertitta rarely takes centerstage.

However, to commemorate UFC 100, fans were treated to a special one-hour question and answer session with the reserved billionaire casino owner last Saturday at the UFC Expo in Las Vegas. With the fans at the helm, here are some highlights:

We have “The Ultimate Fighter” for the 155ers on Spike TV, but what about something for the 135- and 145-pounders on Versus?

Fertitta: We talked a lot about developing some sort of reality show for Versus. Now, we certainly don’t want to copy “The Ultimate Fighter” and what we’ve done on Spike, but we have been working on concepts where we can try to find new talent, bring new talent back to the WEC. You will see something happen where we have some kind of a show that will be a breeding ground for new talent to get into the WEC.

There’s an online petition called FedorChant.com, where a thousand people are going to cheer “Fedor” (Emelianenko) during the main event (at UFC 100). Is that going to put more pressure on you, and just the fact that Fedor doesn’t want to sign because of sambo, was that something that you’d ever overlook?

He's a great guy! Very level headed and puts his points across well. He basically killed any argument from Fedors about not competing in the UFC with one paragraph which Dana and Fedors management have had me baffled about for months.

I didn't know they pay for surgeries the fighters need outside of the cage. Thats a good thing they do with hardly any praise. Great interview!

scoozna

7/14/09 11:15:49AM

Good interview. It is good to know they pay for some surgeries. Although, truly, there will no peace among the fighters until there is an insurance plan that they can know what's covered and what's not covered...plus what the costs will be.